walking forward
by awintea
Summary: Marui has lost touch with his friends from junior high, and so is surprised to find, out of the blue, Niou Masaharu in his kitchen. He is even more surprised to find out that Niou is dead / oneshot.


originally written for some livejournal challenge or another, I discovered this when going through my old tenipuri fic archive and realised that I still liked it, which is more than I can say for more than eighty percent of everything else I wrote (which has now been dumped into my recycling bin and tossed out into the depths of computer space). so here it is (:

.

**walking forward**

.**  
><strong>

Marui's never been good at keeping in touch.

It's just hard - sure, it's easy to make friends and talk to them every day when you see them in class and at club, but along comes high school and university, and even though you said that you'd call each other every week (or more) and meet up every once in a while, none of those things happens.

He can't say he's unhappy with his life right now. Not particularly happy either, but it's not like being an accountant is altogether awful. Sure, it's boring, but he makes quite a lump sum of money and it's what got him his nice apartment in downtown Tokyo. His hair's a lot more tame now too, his previously pink mop of hair now a trimmed businessy black, but at least he doesn't have to spend as much time on it as he did in his younger days.

Younger days. If his younger - that word again - self could hear him think, he'd probably laugh out loud. 'This is what Marui Bunta, self-proclaimed genius has ended up as?' His old friends would probably do the same.

Marui wonders how they are doing now, for a moment, and then shakes his head. No need to dwell in the past - he's got to get ready for work.

And so he heads out of his bedroom, after dressing appropriately, to find, at his kitchen table, an incredibly translucent Niou Masaharu, who, even after so many years, could still so easily disrupt Marui's life.

.

'What are you doing here?' Marui asks first - clearly this lack of opacity Niou's got going for him is some sort of prank, some sort of joke that Marui doesn't know the punch line of yet. He tugs on his tie - somehow, with the Trickster of Rikkai in front of him, wearing such formal clothing seems absurd.

But then he fixes his tie. He can't go to work without looking immaculate, after all.

Niou snorts at this, sounding very _here_, despite not looking it. 'Wow, Marui, looking good,' he says with a smirk.

Marui reddens, but tries to ignore it. This is his home - Niou should be the one who feels embarrassed (though that is a contemptible notion - Niou's never been one to feel shame). 'What are you doing here?' he repeats. 'I've got to get on the train _now_ or I'll be late for work.'

Niou rolls his eyes. 'Your friend from junior high shows up as a ghost and all you can worry about it getting to work on time? Seriously, you've got to get your priorities straight.'

The only word Marui registers is 'ghost', and he stares at Niou again, taking in his there-but-not-there appearance.

All he has to say is 'You're kidding, right?'

The trickster just sighs though, and says simply, 'Let me prove it.'

And he stands up, walks over, and sticks his hand right through Marui's head.

.

'What the fuck?' Marui swears for the first time in years, though it's for a pretty good reason. He's never had somebody's_ arm in his head before_. It feels sort of strange - like a brain-freeze except creepier - and he steps back, so that he's out of Niou's reach.

'Told you.' Niou's smirking again. 'Totally, totally dead. I think the term is "ghost", like I said earlier.'

Marui would be lying if he said he weren't a little bit frightened, but his bewilderment overwrites his fear. 'But, how - what - '

'The how is exactly what I want you to find out.' And now Niou is serious, eyes boring Marui down. 'Marui, I need you to find my killer.'

Now this is all a bit too Sixth Sense with a dash of CSI for Marui, so he blinks a few times. Maybe it's all a dream (or a nightmare?).

But Niou rests a ghostly hand partly into the shorter man's shoulder. 'Sorry,' he says, though he certainly doesn't look it, 'this is one dream you're not going to be waking up from.'

Which makes Marui pause. Wait, he didn't say what he was thinking aloud, did he?

'Nope. Being a ghost does have its perks. And there are other ones too.'

Marui can't help it. When Niou steps right into him - actually_ into_ him - he screams.

.

'Man, you still scream like a girl.'

They're inside some dark space now - a rather cramped one. Marui still feels all shivery from whatever Niou just did, and a little bit in shock because seriously, how the hell did he get here?

'Teleportation,' Niou answers. 'Since ghosts don't adhere to the same laws of physics that people have to - figured that one out a little while back.'

'And how long have you been a ghost?' Marui's still too bewildered to object to what Niou's telling him, because really, if ghosts exist, why can't teleportation be real?

Niou shrugs, his see-through shoulders reflecting a little even in almost complete darkness. 'Can't really keep track of time. Don't think it's more than a few hours or days.'

Then Marui remembers what Niou said earlier. 'Wait! Somebody _killed_ you?'

'Yes, Marui, get with the program.' And Niou opens the door to the room - funny, Marui hadn't even seen it - and gets out. He offers a hand, but then takes it back hastily. 'Sorry. Forgot that I wasn't corporeal.' Instead he moves away, giving Marui room to get up himself.

'But - why?' he asks, still so confused by everything's that happened.

'Could you think what you want to ask?' Niou suggests. 'Because people will probably stare at you if you look like you're talking to yourself.'

.

It takes one hallway and one elevator trip for Marui to understand what Niou said.

'Wait - only I can see you?'

More rolling of the eyes. 'God, it's like being normal made you dumb or something. Yes, only you can see me. I get to choose who I appear to, and who can hear me, that sort of thing. Otherwise people would be seeing ghosts all the time.'

'Are there a lot of ghosts hanging about?' Marui's nothing less than alarmed expression makes Niou laugh, but the question gets no reply. Instead, Niou halts in his steps and Marui just barely avoids walking through him. (Good thing too, because he doesn't think he can deal with any more of that tingly freezing feeling.)

They've arrived at a crime scene. They're still a ways away, so nobody's noticed them, but even from afar Marui can easily tell, looking down the hall through the open door.

The yellow tape. The police officers. The heavy atmosphere. Marui turns to Niou, and he doesn't have to say anything, doesn't have to _think _anything.

'Yes.'

This is where Niou Masaharu died.

.

'You can't be here!' Somebody spots them - someone in uniform. 'You'll have to head back down the hallway to the elevator. Damn, I thought that they'd barred off the building!' The last sentence from the policeman is more to himself than anything, so Marui just nods.

But he does not move.

'Sorry, you really do have to go.' The police officer ushers him away with his hands. 'If your room is on this level you'll have to come back at a later time.'

Room? So this place is an apartment, Marui thinks - it doesn't look like one, because of the very low amount of doors.

'Hotel,' Niou says in a clear voice, and Marui panics before remembering that only he can hear Niou and that the police officer does not have any idea that the murder victim is only a couple of metres away from him.

Marui's perplexed. You lived in a hotel? he thinks, as he walks back to the elevator.

'I just came back to Japan a few days ago for an art exhibition.'

Marui is so stunned by this revelation that he stops in his tracks. He hadn't even known that Niou was out of the country.

Suddenly, he is struck by how very out of touch he is, and it's a little bit painful.

'Come on, let's keep going.' The elevator bell dings - Marui doesn't remember ever pushing the down button in the first place.

What else had happened without his knowing?

.

They sit in the hotel's restaurant, with Marui sipping a cup of coffee. He's calm again now - it's funny how easily he's accepted the situation. Niou just fits in very well with his life.

Do you have any idea who killed you? he finally asks, looking down at his coffee. (The girl sitting at the table in front of them had already given him a funny glance for looking, in her opinion, at her, when really he had just been looking at Niou.)

Niou says nothing for a moment, and Marui wishes that he, not Niou, was the one who was telepathic.

Then he realises that he would have to be dead first, and takes back that thought.

'Yes,' Niou says finally. 'I know who killed me.'

Marui blinks at this revelation - why does he have to search for Niou's killer if Niou already knows who it is?

'Even if I tell you, there'll be no proof. And I don't want you to hate him.' Niou runs a hand through his spiky hair. 'Swear to me, Marui, that you won't hate him.' Niou's tone is completely serious, and Marui is forced to look up into his eyes.

Before Marui can answer, however, someone bursts into the cafe, and Marui is completely thrown for a loop by the appearance of yet another man from his past, albeit a living one.

Kirihara Akaya is in the building.

.

'Marui-senpai?' Kirihara runs over to him immediately after he sees him, and Marui can't help but notice the remnants of tears on his cheeks, and the puffy red eyes. 'What are you doing here?' He sniffles, and Marui sees beyond the taller, more mature man in front of him, remembering instead the young second-year who had been so devastated by a loss in a game.

'You can just call me Marui' is his immediate reply. 'What's wrong, kid?' He's fallen back so easily into his old habits - it's almost as if he is thirteen again and nothing has truly gone wrong in his life.

Niou stays silent.

At this, Kirihara actually bursts into tears, and wraps his arms around Marui as he sobs into his shoulder. 'It's not fair,' the younger man cries into his shoulder. 'It's not fair.'

And Marui stands motionless, letting Kirihara cry even while the other patrons of the restaurant stare at them. A waitress is already heading their way, probably to ask them to either settle down or get out. Marui decides to do the latter and gently steers his underclassman out, Niou following him like a shadow.

.

'He was the one who discovered my body.'

Niou says this casually, after Marui has brought Kirihara back to his hotel room. ('I'll be fine now, senpai,' he had said, with no word about Niou at all. 'Sorry.') 'He was probably devastated.'

'Probably?' Marui repeats aloud - he finds it more comforting to speak rather than think, and it's safe now, since no one else is in the hall. 'He broke down in the middle of the restaurant! Couldn't you have like shown up to him instead of me so that he could feel, I don't know, better?'

And Niou turns on him, dark eyes glaring. 'You'd have preferred it, then, if I didn't show up for you at all? If you hadn't known that I'd died in a hotel just five hundred metres from your office?'

'That's not what I meant,' Marui says immediately, frozen by this sudden change in character. 'It's just, I think he'd have appreciated it more, this...'

'You mean he'd want to know who killed me?' Niou supplied. Marui nodded, and suddenly, Niou just laughs. It's a ringing sound, resonating down the hallway - Marui can't even begin to fathom that he's the only who can hear it, this buoyant, _beautiful_ sound.

He can't begin to fathom the fact that the person making the sound is dead either.

Instead, he asks, 'What's so funny?' though all he wants to do is let Niou continue to laugh like everything's right with the world.

Niou shakes his head, stifling his laughter. He reaches over and makes the gesture of patting Marui on the head, carefully not to actually touch him. 'Nah. I think I prefer your company over his.'

Marui can't explain the warmth that spreads through him at Niou's words, and chooses, rather, to duck, muttering 'Idiot' under his breath.

He has to look down to hide his smile, and in his subconscious mind, a thought, long dormant, stirs from its sleep.

.

Tell me who killed you, he thinks.

'No.'

They've been having this conversation for a while, as the two stalk around the hotel. They were only caught by the police twice, but Marui has found nothing. No evidence, no clues, no traces that would lead him to a killer.

If only he could get into Niou's hotel room.

If only Niou would just fucking_ tell him who did it_.

But Marui already knows neither of them is going to happen, because well, the police have the room locked up tighter than anything and Niou is _Niou_.

Said man is leaning against a wall now. 'Let's take a break.'

'A break?' Marui asks incredulously, forgetting that he isn't supposed to speak aloud. He remembers after someone stares at him, and tries again. He thinks pointedly, What do you mean, let's take a break? It's not like _you _can get tired.

'You look tired,' Niou said with a shrug. 'And even ghosts like to take a breather every once in a while.'

So now you're an expert on the inner workings of ghosts? Marui raises an eyebrow.

'More of an expert than _you_,' Niou retorts. 'I'm an artist, so these sorts of - ' He stops.

An artist?

Since when was Niou an artist?

'You missed out on a lot, Marui, after you left Rikkai.'

.

I didn't have a choice!

'Preach it to the choir, babe,' Niou says absentmindedly. He's busy staring at a police officer, who's patrolling the halls.

Marui sighs. It's not like he could have just ditched his parents and stayed at Rikkai - he wouldn't have had the money to live by himself or the guts to ditch in the first place. He wasn't as -

'-as much of a delinquent as me, right?'

The raven-haired man whirls around at this. Niou is still not looking at him, eyes on the officer who's now heading off in the opposite direction.

What do you mean by that?

'Society'd frown on you if you stayed. I got it, Marui.' Niou is still, _still _not looking at him.

Marui can't help it. He shouts. 'You know I'd have given _anything_ to stay, Niou - anything at all!' He's fuming - how could his best friend - ex-best friend - think that he would have left his friends unless there was nothing else he could do?

Of course, this garners the attention of the officer. 'Hey, you! Didn't I tell you to get off this floor?' So it's the police officer from earlier.

'Sorry!' Marui bows hastily, palms together in front of him. 'I was just - '

'Keep your excuses to yourself,' the officer replies with a shake of his head. 'Just go, please - ' He pauses. 'Did you say _Niou_?'

'No, sir, you must have imagined it,' he replies hastily. 'I'll be going then, bye.' And Marui dashes off towards the elevator, where Niou's already waiting.

.

Though Marui wants to confront Niou, he is halted by the sight of Kirihara in the elevator. The tear tracks on his cheeks are still there, but less visible than before. However, his eyes are just as red.

'Senpai?'

Marui stares up at his old underclassman - when had he gotten so tall? 'Akaya,' he acknowledges, wondering what he could be doing here.

'What level?' Kirihara sidles over to the elevator's call buttons.

'Er, just ground level, thanks.'

There is, for a few moments, silence.

'Niou-senpai's dead.'

And there is more silence, wherein Marui tries to figure out what reaction to have - shock? Disbelief? Grief? Because he should not know that Niou's dead, but he does and -

'I'm - I'm not joking, senpai.' Kirihara swallows, and already there are tears welling up in his eyes. 'I - I found his body and - '

And then he is full-out crying again, and Marui serves, once more, as a shoulder to cry on. 'You don't have to talk about it. I believe you.'

When the elevator doors open, Kirihara has recomposed himself, and asks quietly, as they walk out into the hotel lobby, 'Marui-senpai, did you know that Niou-senpai and I were dating?'

.

His head immediately turns to his right. Niou meets his gaze steadily, as if saying 'So what?'

'Senpai?'

Marui turns his head back towards Kirihara, who looks so _fragile_. 'No, I didn't know.' He doesn't know what to say to this man who's lost his lover yet there is a feeling of - what? Loss? Confusion? _Envy_? Marui can't place it, and, at the moment, he does not particularly want to.

'It's just not fair,' Kirihara says again, and Marui understands where he's coming from.

(Why Niou? Why, of all people, Niou?)

There is a snort from his right, and Marui ignores it, though it perplexes him.

'Have ... have you told any other people?' Marui asks. Kirihara shakes his head. So no then.

'I just didn't know how to say it, and I don't know who I should tell.' He hugs himself tightly. 'It's - I - '

Marui offers quietly, 'Do you want me to call for you?' But the answer is more vehement than he expected.

'No!' Kirihara's outburst causes quite a few people to turn towards them. Marui flips them off, this familiar action coming to him easily around familiar faces. What his boss would say if he saw -

- he was pretty damn late for work.

But that wasn't the point. God. 'I won't do it then,' Marui says slowly to Kirihara - he's just has a great loss, Marui reminds himself, so obviously Kirihara might not be in the best of minds. He ignores the traitorous feeling that he's had a great loss as well. 'If it matters to you that much.'

'It _does_.' Kirihara's hands are in tight fists, though his arms rest at his side. 'You can't do it, Marui.'

And then Kirihara runs off, leaving Marui completely disoriented. He looks to Niou, who's quiet, for once.

So, he says. When were you going to tell me that you were dating Kirihara?

.

'I figured it was obvious,' Niou replies, his whole manner very nonchalant. 'I mean, we were staying in the same hotel room.'

You were? Marui's probably gaping now, but he doesn't care. This -

'Why else would he have found me?' Niou continues. 'I don't see why this matters to _you _though.' His eyes are challenging, asking Marui to explain why exactly he cares so much.

He wants to say that it doesn't, but his mind betrays him.

'You can tell me when you figure it out.' And Niou turns his back on him, and walks away. 'Come on. Let's see if we can get into my room through another elevator.'

An idea comes to Marui, and then he is suspicious again. Why can't you just do that teleportation thing you did with me earlier? Like, teleport us into your bathroom?

'Because,' Niou says, rolling his eyes, 'there are cops all around. Don't think they'd treat you very nicely if they found you hiding in the hot tub.'

Then what good would getting into the room do in the first place? Marui asks, crossing his arms, and then uncrossing them as he jogs to catch up with Niou. He's not as active as he used to be, but that doesn't mean he's out of shape.

'None.'

What?

'But I need to do _something_.' And now Niou stops in his tracks. He turns around to face Marui, and his expression is hard. 'If I don't do anything, they'll catch the real murderer - and I don't want that.'

What?

Niou covers his hands with his eyes. 'This is exactly why I didn't tell you this earlier. You always said you were a genius, but seriously - '

Niou. Marui nods at the door leading out of the hotel. Let's get out of here, and then you have to explain _exactly what you mean_ then.

.

In the sunlight, it is almost impossible to see Niou, so Marui heads towards a shadier spot in the park. A bench underneath a tree. He sits down, and he glares at Niou.

Explain.

'Can I sit down first?'

Marui just continues to glare, so Niou sighs, but starts.

'I wanted you to plant some evidence so that the police would think it was a suicide.'

He says nothing.

'I already put a suicide note in your pocket,' Niou appends. 'Your left one.'

Marui instinctively sticks his hand into his left pocket, and finds a folded up piece of paper. But how -

'Ghosts can achieve corporeal form at times, but it drains a lot of energy. Makes them more transparent after.' Niou snorts. 'Told you I was quite the ghost expert.' When Marui does not laugh, he becomes sombre once more.

And then it all clicks, in Marui's head. Who would Niou protect but -

'It's Kirihara, isn't it.' Marui's intonation is completely flat - there's no one else it could be. God, why hadn't he seen it? _That's _why Niou came to him instead of Kirihara - 'cause he was the one killed him. And obviously Niou wouldn't want his _boyfriend_ to plant a note because it might implicate _him_, but no, Marui was _expendable_-

'That's not true.' And Niou's hands are suddenly a lot more solid than the rest of him, and he rests them on Marui's shoulders. 'Marui - that's - '

'Get out of here,' Marui says lowly, and Niou does, fading entirely from sight.

.

He sits there in the shade, thinking.

God, he is such an _idiot_. He thought - maybe - Niou -

Dammit.

In his musings, he does not see Kirihara come up to him and speak, in his oh-so-innocent voice.

'Senpai?'

Marui looks up and spots Kirihara who looks so concerned still with tear tracks down his cheeks. Did he cry when he killed Niou then? How did he do it? A knife? A gun?

'Are you okay?'

'You _murderer_,' he spits, and Kirihara's eyes grow wide.

'That's - '

'Don't try to deny it,' he whispers, and to his horror he finds that his eyes are rather wet. 'You killed him. And you're going around looking all weepy and mourny when _you're the one who killed him_.'

The taller man's face could not be paler. 'Marui-senpai, how - '

'Your darling _boyfriend _told me.' He sticks out the paper from his pocket. 'Even wrote a suicide note for me to hide in his room so that you might get away with it too.'

'Told you?' And Kirihara's eyes are wild, red, _mad_. 'What else did he tell you?'

But Marui's not afraid. 'He made me promise - made me swear that when I found out who it was, I couldn't hate him.' He takes a deep breath. 'But I didn't think it'd be _you_.'

'He said that, did he?' Then all the rage flies out of Kirihara, like air from a balloon. He's once more the boy who's lost a loved one, and Marui can't fully hate him for it because he looks so distraught and he must have loved Niou -

Loved Niou.

'Why did you kill him?' he asks, because now, on the edge of epiphany, he has to know.

.

'He didn't love me.'

This sounds ridiculous to Marui, because -

'It's true, Marui-senpai. He never saw me as anything but a friend, an underclassmen. He only ever dated me because I asked.' And Kirihara's eyes are crazed again. 'Marui-senpai - all he ever wanted was _you_.'

Marui is suddenly glad that he has the bench to support him, because without it he may have collapsed. 'What?' he asks hoarsely, his voice not complying with him.

'He - he was always looking for you.' Each word that comes out of Kirihara's mouth seems to wound him. 'Everywhere. When you left, you don't understand because you weren't there, but he was devastated. Even Yagyuu-senpai couldn't cheer him up. He quit the tennis club and didn't talk to us any more, and it took me months just to get him to eat lunch with me. You don't understand, senpai - he was a completely different person.

'But then he spotted you one day, and he had his camera with him, and he took a picture of you walking in downtown Tokyo. He told me that he wasn't sure it was you, and didn't think it was, because if you had come back to Tokyo you obviously would have visited us because we were your friends, and then he showed me the photo and I knew it was you but I couldn't tell him.

'And he started looking for you everywhere - he's a professional photographer now, because he was so good at taking quick photos, just slipping out his camera at the right moment to get the perfect shot. He has this whole album of pictures of you, and you wouldn't know it but -

'I couldn't deal with being in your shadow the whole time,' Kirihara whispers, and his eyes are still that shade of crimson as he speaks, his words barely audible. 'He told me that he found you this morning. Actually found you. Your name was in a magazine, and it had your office listed in it, and he had gone to meet up with you but you weren't there but he had gotten your address from the secretary and I just couldn't lose him and - '

He stops, and then his eyes close. When they open again, they are normal - teary and a bit red, but normal.

'Senpai... I'm sorry.'

Marui stands up, and envelops Kirihara in his arms.

'No, Akaya. I'm the one that's sorry.'

And the two people left behind comfort each other.

.

Marui sees him just once more, sitting once again at his kitchen room table.

'Niou,' he acknowledges. That's all he says.

'Akaya wasn't questioned.' Niou says this as a question. He looks more translucent - no, he's almost transparent now, looking further gone than he did before.

'I gave the suicide note to the police officer and said you left it with me. They checked it and it matched with your handwriting. Told them that Akaya had been with me at the time of your death, doing a bit of a catching up.'

Niou nods. 'Thank you.'

They are quiet.

'Marui - '

'No.' Marui holds out a hand to stem Niou's words. 'You're dead now. This - this is all impossible - '

Then Niou stands up and is suddenly very, very real and very, very close and Marui stops breathing as Niou's lips touch his.

But suddenly Niou is not so corporeal and he's fading, disappearing, and Marui's lips feel so cold and the body in front of him is slipping from his grasp. 'Niou!'

'I told you.' Even his voice is vanishing. 'After ghosts become solid they lose their energy.' There's a faint smile on Niou's face. 'I guess it means mine's just run out.'

'_Niou!_' Marui knows he sounds desperate but that's what he is - he can't lose him just after he's gotten him back, and he's realised -

' - that you love me?' And Niou's smile quirks up into a smirk. 'It's okay, I already knew.' But it's back to the soft smile again, and he says, quietly, 'This isn't the end, you know.'

'What's that supposed to mean?' Marui reaches out again, tries to hold Niou, but now even the cool, eerie feeling is lessening.

'There's still life for you - a lot of it. Promise me you'll make the most of it, Marui, and be happy.' Niou smiles wider now. More peacefully.

Marui isn't ready to lose Niou a second time, and he tells him so.

Niou just continues to smile, and says simply, 'Marui - ' before he's gone.

Marui crumples down onto the kitchen chair and cries.

.

He's at the funeral.

The priest is saying something or another that Marui knows Niou would have hated. He's gone on for a while now, and Marui finds himself bored.

But he spots a familiar face. Or rather, a familiar bald head. He's frozen to the spot - he hasn't spoken to Jackal ever since he left, and he doesn't know what to say - it's not like he can just go 'Hey, Jackal, this funeral's pretty lame, isn't it?' And what if it isn't Jackal? Just 'cause the man's bald and has the same skin tone doesn't make him Jackal, and Marui can't even see his face, not that he would recognise it after so many years - and what if it is Jackal but he doesn't recognise Marui? There are so many things that can go wrong -

- and Jackal turns around, as if drawn by Marui's gaze. His eyes widen, but then he nods, and walks towards him.

'Long time no see.'

Marui smiles, and meets his friend halfway in the sunshine.

.

.

.

**fin  
><strong>


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